PT Should Lucas Have Done More to Ensure TPM Didn't Disappoint Some Fans?

Is it to early to put that on my Christmas list?

 

I only learned far after the fact that The Phantom Menace was supposed to be a disappointment. Didn't hinder my enjoyment before, and didn't affect me after.

But really, if someone had the key to ensuring a movie wasn't a disappointment, then that would be a real game changer. Even the most talented and revered directors put out something that isn't universally loved. Simply put, there is no way to ensure such a thing, it's all going off of a limb.

 

I've said this before and I'll say it, again...if Lucas had other people other than himself direct all three prequels, they would have been very good films. Everything wrong in those films is because of poor directing. You could say that isn't fair, but the truth is Lucas was sort of callous of the finished product.

 

Really, because I thought his directing was phenomenal.

Most complaints of the PT that have merit usually regard the script, so it seems odd to see criticism of the direction of the films.

I mean, Lucas already directed ANH, so why isn't that film considered to have bad direction?

There are plenty of stand out visual scenes that Lucas crafted as director. The Gungans emerging from the mist, the sunset on Coruscant, the shooting of the duels, the chase through Coruscant, the battle of Geonosis, the Padme rumination scene, the birth of Vader.

I can't think of another director who's as good at conveying both simple humanity and thematic material, and complex large scale battles.

 

Uh, what? Who told you this?

 

I'm just referring to people who told me it was a bad movie, like it was supposed to be some kind of consensus. Before that, it wasn't as known/people didn't care.

 

I'm talking about the Prequels here...not something he did 16 years prior.

A director is responsible for conveying what's in a script, and getting his actors to convey a natural, emotional performance that illustrates what's in the script. He failed to do that...maybe not completely, but enough to make these three films not connect with the audience like the previous three films had done. You may feel different, but most film critics see these movies as bad filmmaking, and their main fingerpointing all leads to the director, that being George Lucas.

Having said that, I like the Prequels — they're still Star Wars films to me. I just don't like them as much as the OT, that's all.

 

I don't agree that there's a single right or wrong way to direct a movie. Naturalism is a style, a choice - but not the only choice. Sometimes I enjoy things that are campy, or unrealistic, or strange; I'd rather watch Star Wars than something self-serious and glum like Battlestar Galactica. And Star Wars has always been kind of weird - even ESB, which probably has the most naturalistic style to the dialogue, still has its share of bad or ridiculous lines. What I like about the way the prequels approach this issue is that their formal, stiff style helps create a sense of them being in the past, evem if it's not our past, something reminiscent of pre-war Europe, where there's an air of formality and old-fashionedness about everything.

 

Well, when I hear people criticize George Lucas as a director, it usually revolves around one thing- he’s not very good at working with actors. This has actually always been true. Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher have all attested to the fact that Lucas only ever told them one thing on the set of the original movie, “Faster! More intense!” The actors on AMERICAN GRAFFITI have also attested to the fact that Lucas barely communicated with them. Robert Duvall, who worked with Lucas on THX 1138, basically said, “Well, he doesn’t really say anything to you. He just leaves you alone.”

Now that’s fine when you’re dealing with a certain caliber of actor- Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasence, Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness, Liam Neeson, Christopher Lee, Ian McDiarmid, Ewan McGregor.

It also kinda works when you simply cast an actor based on how well their real-life personality matches their character. Both Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher come off as being pretty unpolished in the first film (they’re both significantly better when directed by Irvin Kershner, Richard Marquand and J.J. Abrams), but they do a solid job of conveying their characters’ personalities. Not great acting, by any stretch of the imagination, and arguably not even particularly good, but their performances work well enough in the context of the film. And both are likable and charming enough that the audience can overlook some of the rough patches.

But when you’re working with a kid like Jake Lloyd, it doesn’t work so well. Child actors NEED strong direction, and Lucas’s notoriously non-communicative approach is laughably ill-suited to directing children. The reason someone like Spielberg is renowned for his ability to direct children is that he is preternaturally skilled at communicating with children and he knows exactly what to do and say in order to get the results out of them. Lucas…not so much.

It can also backfire when the actors are relatively young and inexperienced, such as Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman. Both Christensen and Portman are talented actors and both have done fine work in other movies, but their STAR WARS performances often seem aimless and confused (especially Portman). There are several moments in the movies where I really feel sorry for Natalie, because it really seems as if she has no clue what’s going on, and her director is absolutely being of no use to her whatsoever. Christensen actually has a few moments when he’s pretty good in these movies (all of them involve him not uttering any of Lucas’s garbage dialogue), but he also has quite a few scenes where it’s clear that he needs a stronger director to guide him.

I won’t dispute Lucas’s visual imagination, but this guy is simply not good at directing actors. He never has been. This isn’t even a matter of opinion. It’s a matter of historical record, and nearly everyone who’s ever been directed by him will attest to its verity.

 

I will object to that. Just a tiny bit.... I would admit, that Lucas isn't the best choice for an actors. But I will disagree that he is a terrible at it.

However, the subject of how the actors delivered their lines, is well....Subjective. Of course, we all have different taste and opinions....

Many of the acting parts so refuted, are done quite well. Like Lloyd, whom I deem, a good child actor. He used his emotions visually and conveyed what he felt. He was what I think George wanted...A natural boy actor. Not professional child actors..

 

If anyone truly believes that all Lucas says is "Faster, more intense," then it's really not worth having a discussion. There is documentation of actual direction Lucas gave his actors, very concise direction. If anything, Lucas got exactly what he wanted out of everyone. If people don't like what that performance is, well...okay? But not liking =/= Lucas is incontrovertibly terrible at directing actors.




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But there's a huge volume of commentary from actors that shows that Lucas provides minimal direction to his actors. You can call his direction "concise" if you want. Minimal, at times bordering on non-existent is another description. In addition he's not one to do take after take after take & really push actors to get just the right performance out of them. Usually it's one or two takes then "okay, that'll do". Seems it comes down to the fact that he's an introvert who isn't comfortable barking orders at people. He likes to limit his communication with others as much as possible. He freely admits to preferring the technical aspects of filmmaking over dealing with people on set. In contrast the likes of Abrams & Cameron & many others are the opposite type of personality. They'll demand a certain performance out of their actors, no matter what. Even if it means 50 takes. No surprise when you find stories like this where Abrams called out Daisy Ridley in front of everyone on her first day on set for being too wooden. That's harsh but it's strong direction. Whatever you think of TFA her performance has been universally praised. So, it's not that Lucas is a terrible director of actors. It's that he doesn't direct them anywhere near enough. Which is kind of the same thing.

 

The problem is that a movie set is about as far removed from a natural environment as you can get, especially on a movie like THE PHANTOM MENACE, which is so heavily reliant on blue screens and requires actors to interact with and react to things that aren’t there on set due to the heavy use of CGI. And when working with a child, unless you’re very clear when it comes to guiding them, and well, doing actual directing, you’re not going to get a natural reaction. Combining a complete lack of direction, a child actor, and heavy reliance on blue screens and CGI is nothing short of a recipe for disaster.

Now, to be fair to Lucas, directing child actors isn’t an easy thing to do. In my opinion, even a genius as great and legendary as Stanley Kubrick wasn’t very good at it (sorry, but I always found Danny Lloyd’s performance in THE SHINING to be pretty awkward). That’s why I give someone like Spielberg such praise for being able to pull it off so effortlessly (and, now that I think about it, I wonder if that’s why Kubrick wanted Spielberg to direct ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: AI, the final version of which, as flawed as it is, features a truly brilliant and devastating performance from Haley Joel Osment). Spielberg even went so far as to shoot E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL in sequence specifically in order to elicit more naturalistic performances from the child actors. Do you know how rare it is for a film to be shot in sequence? There’s a scene in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND were the little kid sees the aliens for the first time. At first, he’s supposed to be frightened of them but then starts smiling when he sees that they’re actually playful and friendly. Do you know how Spielberg got that reaction out of the kid? He had a lighting technician who the kid had grown really fond of dress up in a gorilla suit. When the kid first saw the gorilla suit, he was frightened. Then the guy removed the mask and the kid started smiling when he saw that it was really his good friend underneath the suit. In the same film, during a scene when the spaceship is approaching the kid’s house, the kid is supposed to get all excited when he sees his friends coming. Spielberg achieved that by slowly unwrapping a present for the kid off camera, and made sure to capture the kid’s visible excitement on camera.

Now do you really think that Lucas, someone who’s notorious for not being able to communicate with adults, is willing or able to come up with creative solutions like this when it comes to dealing with child actors? Remember that we’re talking about a guy who famously hates the difficulties and challenges of film directing so much that he gave up on it for 20 years until advances in digital technology removed all those difficulties. He’s just not a very hands-on type of guy…and you need a hands-on type of guy to work with actors.

Well, I guess it’s not worth having a discussion with Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, because they’ve been saying exactly that for 40 years.

Hell, let’s look at AMERICAN GRAFFITI, which is easily the best-acted film Lucas has ever directed, and would seemingly be a rebuttal to the notion that he has no idea how to communicate with actors. Here’s how Charles Martin Smith, who played Terry the Toad in that film, described Lucas’s style of “directing”:

He’s literally saying that Lucas doesn’t even bother with things like framing and shot composition! I guess that would involve Lucas violating his ironclad rule of never communicating with his actors.

But to be fair to Lucas, none of the actors on AMERICAN GRAFFITI have ever claimed that he told them to be “Faster! More intense!” Instead, his approach to directing the actors on that film was even more hilariously simplistic. You see, at least on STAR WARS, he at least said three words to his actors. On AMERICAN GRAFFITI, he only ever said ONE word to them. “Terrific.” Here’s how Ron Howard:

I mean, Jesus! Look, I’m sorry if you’re a fan of the guy, but this stuff is just ridiculous. It’s comedically unprofessional, and an absolutely atrocious way of working with actors. The way he “directs” actors is simply indefensible. He doesn’t bother with things like framing and his direction is so vague as to be meaningless. Like I said, this goes beyond it merely being my opinion that he’s not good at directing actors. It’s a matter of historical fact that he does NOT direct actors. He literally does not give them direction. Period. That is a fact, attested to by every single actor he’s ever directed.

 

Think Little Rascals/Out Gang not Sixth Sense.

 

I think it would surprise people how often directors "don't direct," at least in the way people here think of it. Woody Allen barely speaks to his actors, and when he does it's more like "That's not it, do it again," before retreating to his corner.

The point I'm trying to make is, it's easy to look at someone and say "they are lacking here," but it's very hard to look at the big picture and see the nuance of what they are doing in every step of the process. Directing actors doesn't have to be a cerebral journey into the actors minds and pasts in order to create the performance. Sometimes it is just as easy as "faster, more intense," especially for a director whose dialogue and performance is in every corner of the frame, not just on some pretty people's faces.

Lucas seems to say much more with his images than he ever says with his actors. It's a different kind of filmmaking, but it also seems to be working. There's something incredibly timeless about those stilted performances, something that will have much more character and last far longer in the collective memory than more recent performances and "Droid, please!"-grade modernisms.

Also, if JJ really called Daisy out for being wooden in front of everyone, I would say he's the one who needs directing lessons. That's pretty shocking for a director to do, especially when the main job of a director on set is to create an environment of safety where performers and artists can express themselves without that kind of ****. But I also don't really believe that story; at least, not the way I've heard it told.


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The basic problem with that those is the majority of that comes from the OT and the one movie he directly directed in ANH (besides being on ROTJ most of the time). For the PT the commentary is not only that but that he did direct actors to be very specific in things especially for HC as Anakin and then that gets criticized because what Lucas wanted isn't what they wanted it to be. Which makes the argument astonishingly useless in the first place.

The idea of "pushing" the actors to get just the right performance is a circular argument. As on ANH if Lucas didn't like something he would say so. At that time that was the best way to get comments from Lucas. If you were looking for praise you could forget it. He wasn't into telling actors what they did right.

He knew that in the reality of his movies the way he makes them he gathers the materials and then crafts the movie in the edit. ANH is a masterwork of movie magic because on the actual set many thought a disaster was taking place including Lucas himself at times. As he stated he was making the most expensive low budget film of all-time.

Lucas casts the actors because he sees the characters in them visually and in some aspect of their personality. He knows they can learn their lines, hit the marks and if he wants to he can adjust their performance through the script, on the set or later in reshoots. Which he did liberally in the PT. Hence the 60 days shoots for the movies followed by multiple additional shoots to adjust everything including the performances.

I think it's very safe to say that Lucas probably was more specific with HC for AOTC and ROTS than any actor he ever worked with. Hayden was chosen for multiple aspects of his look, athletic ability and his acting especially his dark intensity that is needed for Anakin.

I find that HC gave an awesome nuanced performance of what is easily the most difficult and multi-faceted character that SW has ever had or likely will have.

Except of course it's not what some fans wanted and what critics didn't expect so therefore Lucas to their minds got it wrong. Which is total nonsense of course. He got what he wanted. They just didn't agree with it.

As for DR. I don't know what her first day of shooting was but the scenes where he first meets Finn struck me as very odd from the first time I watched them because for whatever reason they really had her acting all really smiley and wondrous looking. It seemed odd to me compared to other scenes around it so I wonder if that was her reaction to JJ to go OTT in the other direction?

I can't agree. I think as with HC Lucas got pretty much exactly what he wanted with JL as Anakin much like MH as Luke. I don't see what blue screens have to do with it. MH and the OT actors said all the same things about "things not being there" as well. The actors work with each other. Heavy use of CGI is hardly different than heavy use of anything else. In fact if anything what some people seem to want IS NOT natural reactions at all but the more standard movie reactions.

I think that generalizes far too much. Everything we know about how he was on ANHmakes Lucas' work on the PT look like he was Mr Congeniality in comparison. In terms of how he was on the set it couldn't be further away. So everything those wanted on ANH he did for TPM, AOTC and ROTS.

Personally I think JL's performance is excellent but then I think that HC and MH are as well so whatever Lucas does for his main leads I'm sold on.

 

I’m not the world’s biggest Woody Allen fan (although MANHATTAN is one of my favorite movies, and I’d argue he’s directed about half a dozen or so great films) but I’d argue that he’s a much better director of actors than Lucas is. Aside from most of Allen’s films being pretty well-acted, in my opinion, the fact is that most actors actually seem to like working with Allen, whereas most actors who’ve worked with Lucas have pretty much described his direction as being utterly useless and completely frustrating. If nearly every actor you’ve ever directed (Duvall seems to be the only one who likes Lucas’s approach) find your complete and total lack of direction to be useless and frustrating, then you’re not doing your job.

I mean, Mariel Hemingway’s performance in MANHATTAN. It’s a perfect combination of strength and vulnerability. She has to convey both naïveté and wisdom beyond her years. Now Hemingway was only 16 when she did that movie and she’d only been in one other movie before that. There’s no way you get that performance out of an inexperienced 16-year-old without actually directing them. I doubt that Lucas ever could’be gotten that performance out of Hemingway.

Again, this is not just my opinion. This is is nearly every single actor he’s every worked with making this claim. This is a claim repeated by the likes of Ron Howard, Charles Martin Smith, Mackenzie Phillips, Candy Clark, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, etc. His direction is so vague as to be useless and he just leaves actors frustrated because they never have any idea what he wants. When near every actor you’ve worked with thinks that your direction is useless and frustrating, then you’re not doing your job. I’be never heard of such a litany of complaints directed at Allen, so obviously, he gives his actors what they need.

Directing actors consists of giving them what they need. That’s why someone like Scorsese is so good at it. He instinctually knows when an actor needs his help and when he needs to leave an actor alone. Look at the performance he got out of 12-year-old Jodie Foster in TAXI DRIVER. Foster has repeatedly praised Scorsese, and said that working with him was one of the best experiences of her career. She talks about how Scorsese was always there for her, and how, despite the fact that she was playing a child prostitute, he made it so that she never once felt uncomfortable on the set of that film. That’s because Scorsese actually works with his actors.

Now, to be fair, some actors don’t require that much direction. Some actors know what they’re doing and they just need the director to step aside. Robert Duvall is, to the best of my knowledge, the only actor who’s ever liked Lucas’s complete and total lack of direction. And if that’s what works for Duvall, then that’s fine. Robert Duvall is a great actor and he doesn’t need George Lucas to tell him how to act. But many actors who’ve worked with Lucas have come out and said that they needed more guidance from him. In fact, Natalie Portman has explicitly come out and said that the STAR WARS prequels nearly ruined her career. No director wanted to work with her because they all thought she was a god-awful actress. The only reason her career survived is that she convinced Mike Nichols to write a letter of recommendation for her that basically said, “No, Natalie can actually act. It’s just that George Lucas is an absolutely horrible director.” And I’ve seen that Portman can do fantastic work under the aegis of actual directors, like Mike Nichols and Darren Aronofsky. So when I see a talented actor like Portman give such a confused, awkward, aimless, deer-in-the-headlights performance that Portman gives in the prequel films, I realize it’s not her fault. It’s Lucas’s fault for not being there for his actors.

Well, if you think the prequel performances will last in the collective memory as anything but the butt of a joke, well, history has already proven you wrong. Go out and ask 20 random people what they can remember about Qui-Gon Jinn, Padmé Amidala, and Mace Windu. My guess is they won’t remember much, if they even remember those characters at all. Then ask if they can remember anything about Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia. I guarantee you that all of them will remember those three.

I’d also argue that one of the problems with the way actors are handled is that, as a combination of bad direction and bad writing, they have no character. I mean, Natalie Portman doesn’t have any character in these movies. She wears geisha makeup in the first one. She has a bunch of dresses. She shows her midriff in the second one. Then she gets knocked up and dies. That’a the extent of her character.

How about Samuel L. Jackson? This is arguably the only time in movie history that Jackson has ever been boring. I mean, what is his character? I guess he’s bald. He has a purple lightsaber. Um…again, that’s the extent of his character. I mean, Jackson is actually a perfect example of just how forgettable these prequel characters are. I guarantee that 98% of the world’s population has already forgotten that Jackson was in these movies. But despite an R rating and coming out 5 years before THE PHANTOM MENACE, most people still remember Ezekiel 25:17. “And I shall strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the LORD when I lay my vengeance upon thee.” Yeah, Jules Winnfield has much more character and has lasted in the collective consciousness much longer than whatever Jackson was playing in the STAR WARS prequels. Then again, Quentin Tarantino actually directs actors.

And yes, I’d say that Daisy Ridley and John Boyega do much better jobs than any of the prequel actors did (Ian McDiarmid notwithstanding). Rey and Finn already have more character and are more memorable than any of the prequel characters were (again, aside from the Emperor). And most audiences seem to agree with me.

Two words: Stanley Kubrick. I'm not saying that Abrams is a visionary genius like Kubrick was, but Kubrick often did far worse than call his actors wooden in front of everyone. Did Kubrick need directing lessons?

I would’ve settled for E.T. I’m actually not a huge fan of E.T. (personally, I consider it Spielberg’s most overrated film and arguably the most overrated film of the 1980s), but I won’t deny that Spielberg did a good job of getting some very good, naturalistic performances out of the child actors in that film. This is actually one area where Spielberg would’ve undeniably been a much better director of THE PHANTOM MENACE than Lucas was.

 

Kuro

What's you're point? So the actors have to act as if something is not there.....It's called *Acting* for a reason. Plenty of movies use blue/green screen, interacting with something that's not there..

It's movie making. Whatever movie is being made, that would require the actor to go on the directors term. Did you also know that Mark Hamil had a hard time with acting with Yoda in both SW films? He said that the puppet didn't convey what he needed to act on, which made it frustrating on him. Even if something was there, it didn't help Hamil at all because to him, it was just a puppet, not a human.

Same for Carrie. She said it was hard acting with things not there at all.

And mostly, this pretty much shows that young people on SW have hard times acting on SW films because of what it requires them to do, while the higher up actors seemingly either enjoy it or are able to do it perfectly, without much problems.

To me, you are being a bit dishonest. You are quoting these from the DOC and leaving out the context of the film. You would need people to watch the doc fully instead of quoting these to make it sound worse than it is.

If I'm not mistaken with this one:

He was giving them freedom. He asked where they wanted to position themselves in the scene on their own terms.

I would suggest people watch this

To get the full context of everything. Just quoting these makes it sound a bit dishonest, but I get you're point.

That's not a good enough argument. In fact, it's almost baseless.

You can't just use this as an objective fact, if that is what you're implying.

 

And this is why those young actors need a director that talks to them. Hamill had that on EMPIRE. Lloyd didn’t have that on THE PHANTOM MENACE.

Well, the full context is that, according to all the actors who worked on the film, AMERICAN GRAFFITI is basically the world’s biggest and most successful blooper real. Because Lucas doesn’t like talking to actors, he’d just wait for them to screw up, and then put the screwup in the final film in order to make it seem spontaneous and naturalistic.

 

Exactly. This proves one thing, that Lucas had no business being the director of those films. It's like he didn't realize how important it was to get the actors to perform at a high level — especially when it concerns a genre that is hard to convince the audience to believe in its characters. What he did in ANH was incredible for its time...but he grew complacent over the years and took forever to direct another film. And it's a shame that he waited until TPM to come back to directing, because if he had a few films in the last few years under his belt, then he would have been more concerned with the acting and things might've been different. I really believe that.

 

That's fine for you but I totally disagree. I find the acting level of the PT to be at an incredibly high level. I totally believe in the characters.

I'd say the overall level for the PT is more accomplished due to the nature of the characters. Comparing the level of difficulty of Anakin, Padme and Obi-Wan over 3 films and the character development to Luke, Leia and Han is to me not only not close but something that is not even something to consider that strongly. Ultimately as good a characters and Leia and Han are their characters are just not anywhere near the overall importance to Luke that Padme and Obi-Wan are.

As ever I think the "problem" is that the characters that he created simply were not the same kind as he did before.

If he had done the same thing as before I doubt there would be the same complaints. The kinds of character sets he had in the two trilogies were very different as they were supposed to be and were meant to be.

The OT characters were done in one style with different character goals and concerns in mind than the PT ones. Why would someone as creative as Lucas want to do the exact same thing he already did for 10 years and 3 movies all over again?

 

People here keep acting like GL is some static entity that hasn't changed ever since the 70s. The guy has changed. He was a lot more laissez-faire with directing actors in the originals; in the prequels, he did take a more involved approach. You can see that a little bit here -- he's giving the actors vocalizing cues, blocking frames, explaining what state of mind their characters are in, all sorts of things. He brought in a dialogue coach to help the actors with the more emotionally intense acting scenes of Revenge of the Sith (probably the most heightened and intense of all the films). He even gives the actors more material that he believes they can chew on more, giving them space to really do the meat and potatoes of acting and delve into the character. I've never heard any of the prequel actors seriously complain about the experience, and I think there's a reason for that. This video is an example of the kind of directing actors I'm talking about from Lucas. Personally, I think he got exactly what he wanted, and I enjoyed the performances.

GL seems to like a much older style of acting that isn't as popular today; in fact, it is so rarely utilized by directors that most people just consider it a mistake when they see it because they are so unaccustomed to it. It's a very painterly way, a very honest -- warts and all -- kind of naturalistic approach. Think silent era, Wyler films, etc. But then GL combines this very open, relaxed style with heightened dialogue that's also very honest, very in-universe. The closest analogue is probably period films from before the 60s, or silent films from the 20s. Personally I like it and I'm so glad that GL directed the prequels. If anyone else had directed them, it would have almost certainly been the more popular style utilized today, and although that would have been more popular I would not have enjoyed it as much, and I don't think it would have made the prequels as unique as they are today in modern cinema.

 

I can see your point about Obi-Wan and Anakin (at least, on a conceptual level, if not necessarily an execution level), but I’d argue that the tradeoff is that you also have to hold the prequel actors to a higher standard, and of the three, McGregor is really the only one who consistently hits the mark. Christensen has solid moments (whenever he doesn’t have to deliver dialogue), but most of his line readings are just awful. I actually don’t blame this on Christensen, since he’s a talented actor (just watch SHATTERED GLASS if you have any doubt of that), and I actually think that he was a pretty good choice for the part. Instead, I blame this on bad writing and bad direction.

As for Portman, these films really don’t give her anything to do. She just sorta moves the plot along rather than existing as a character in her own right. She can do great work when paired with someone like a Mike Nichols or a Darren Aronkfsky, but here, she just seems very awkward, confused and wooden. It’s clear that she has talent but that she also needs a strong director and a strong script behind her. When given a nothing part, as in STAR WARS or THOR, she really comes off badly.

 

Period dramas from before the 1960s? You mean like this:



Yeah, I don’t see much in common with the prequels. It’s arguably a bit more stagy and theatrical than modern styles of acting, but it never feels stiff, wooden or awkward. I could actually see that it might’ve had a bit of an influence on Han and Leia, but not the prequels.

 

I wasn't directly referencing Gone With the Wind -- like I said, I was thinking more Wyler-type stuff. 1939's Wuthering Heights and so on. In the prequels, having the emotions but under-the-surface and not readily visible is sort of the point -- subtlety is the aim most of the time (and I enjoy it -- for example, The Force Awakens' acting was much too 'loud' and demonstrative, in my opinion. Going to level 10 with the emotions doesn't mean much if you are always at 8 or 9.). The aim of acting is too communicate what the character is doing and their emotional tone in the scene and I am always able to get that from the PT acting. Just because it's downplayed doesn't make it 'wooden.' I can tell what the characters are feeling and thinking. Maybe others can't? But that's their issue, not the movie's issue.

For The Phantom Menace, there was a sense of formality and decorum, which I think suited it nicely -- it makes Anakin and Jar Jar stand out even more and contrary to popular opinion I really liked a lot of little Anakin's portrayal. I've worked with kids and he brought something real to the role -- I love the dinnertable scene with Qui-Gon. In Attack of the Clones, things were purposely awkward and imbalanced, and I love that. We're so used to a type of 'Hollywood acting' that to see that kind of rawness, especially Hayden, was really intense and very truthful, I feel. It takes a lot of bravery to shoot for that level of insecurity and awkwardness to make one's point, that level of intensity, and I liked it. Natalie also did a great job on that film too -- lots of very good nonverbal physical acting she does that communicates exactly how she feels. Ewan of course was consistently good. And then when we get to Revenge of the Sith, I think that film is really incredible in terms of the performances. It almost forms a straight-line -- TPM is more restrained, AOTC is fluctuating between restrained and intense, and ROTS is flat-out intense. I just really like how it all plays out and I believe that the characters are who they are. The accents and the way they word things is just the way this universe is; it's the culture. This is how they talk. This is how they feel and look. It just all feels like Star Wars to me and fits -- sure, there is a slight change between some of the OT and PT in acting but that was purposeful. We are not on the edges of the galaxy, we are in the highest aristocracy of the capital. For me it worked. They don't need to be the same.

It was so effective to me that when I look at Ewan or Natalie or Hayden now, I see someone else -- in these films, their characters are them. I really liked it and I really wouldn't change much of any of it. I think it's just personal tastes and some people don't like this style. It makes them uncomfortable or it seems unbelievable to them. That's fine. They can watch movies then that suit more to their tastes. But for me, I'm glad these movies were made the way they are. Somehow, regardless of their influences, they stand on their own in their own way. They are so unique, not just in their look, feel, and acting, but just in everything, that I'm glad it came out the way it all did.

Post-script: Honestly I feel like the real reason some people can't 'believe' the acting is because they are looking with skeptical eyes -- they are looking for holes. If you look that way, of course you will disbelieve it. A person must not enjoy these movies in that way because that's not how they are meant to be enjoyed. They are meant to be films that you let immerse you in their world, that you feel, don't think through. That is why young people get them and understand what they are about and love them; they greet them openly and on their own terms, without preconceptions of what is 'supposed' to be. In that way, their quality depends on the frame of mind one has towards them.